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I was reading an article that Supercell made $500k per day from the New York Times. I then read that they make $750K a day with proof that the CEO said it was “significantly higher than when the NYTimes article came out.” Now, it’s projected that they make $1,000,000.00 per day. They are also slated to be worth $600 Million! I found this astonishing being that they only have two games.

If you think about it, the games are visually basic, extremely unoriginal, and lacking in depth. Clash of Clans is a game based off of any other MMORPG where you farm for resources, build troops, and attack other “clans” (aka. guilds, groups, friends lists). Hay Day is basically based off of money markets and a game called “PIT.” This type of game play that is generic and easy is very fun and addicting. However there is a twist.

Clash of Clans has figured out how to exploit gamers’ basic desire, to be GOOD. If you want to play the game, you have to pay. How, though, it’s a free game? Well, at first, the game seems fun. You get gold, elixir, and gems. These are forms of currency in the game. Gems are the most powerful, most needed, and literally the most expensive.

It’s fun to build bases, build defenses, and build offenses. I started Clash of Clans by setting it all up exactly how I wanted it. I could click a button to make the buildings build faster. It would reduce my gems, and as I upgraded, the cost was significantly high in gem cost. It was obvious to me that gems were the most important in the game. I was excited to find them. However, the gems received by hunting and playing the very lacking(depth) campaign was insignificant for gems. Achievements give barely any for what you need. I found it odd that you could buy gold and elixer with gems, but not gems with gold and elixir. That’s how most games work with currency. Then I looked at the prices for buying gems. Wow! How can you justify charging $5 for 500 gems. Thats a penny for a gem. Someone could pay $100 for gems, but they don’t get you very far. That’s outrageous to me, and apparently many more.

Supercell has 60 people working for them. With total costs for the company you could say they need around $50k a day. So if the company made double, that would be pure profit. Instead, $1 Million per day. For what? Yes it’s true, it isn’t their fault that people buy gems. However, you can’t have continuous game play without them.

As you progress in the game, structures and upgrades take days! Why would you have a game that takes days before you can play it again? Unless you could charge them for trying to play during the upgrade times. There are many ideas that could help this game be more fair on the players of the game.

Reduce Gem costs by 80%. Believe it or not, they would have more sales than ever.

Make structure upgrades allow multiple builders to shorten times.

Make the game more fun for clans. (aka. Practice Modes, VS. Your friends, and Send messages to players.)

Give people a reason to charge them such high costs for a literally free item.

Charge a one time price for a gem subscription. ($50/yr for 250 gems a week or something like that)

Charge a one time price for the game.

Make gem achievements that give a decent amount of gems.

Don’t make people with money to spend better at the game because they buy gems. People without money will always suck.

Sell your company before you fizzle out.

I am not against a company making money! I love that they are scooping up cash. However, when it goes too far it becomes ethically embarrassing for the company. There is little respect given to a company that charges an arm an a leg for someone to be good at the game. If a player spends $500 they would only be an average gamer. That is insane.

Remember, the best things in life are free. Never pay for something that costs ZERO dollars for the company to make (like bottled water). The game, and contracts for all work are paid for. I would imagine they have less than 60 people every day. I’m not saying we should stop playing. Just remember to give a review based on what you think the price of graphical items cost in a game. Especially such an easy game to make. Just add retina graphics and you’re ready to go.

I totally agree on certain points you make. Actually i agree on all of them but a few in particular;

– Make structure upgrades allow multiple builders to shorten times.
– Make the game more fun for clans. (aka. Practice Modes, VS. Your friends, and Send messages to players.)

I’ve been telling myself for months it should be possible to put 5 builders on one structure if one would please. (shortening upgrade time 4x)

Also, re-add the option to sell a structure. I’ve made the stupid mistake to build 4 depots of each resource. That’s a hell of a lot more to defend when i actually dont need them (yet).
And as it turns out, the option was in fact present in the game, but got removed because a lot of people accidentally removed their buildings? o_O. Put it back with an on/off toggle in settings menu.

AND MOST IMPORTANTLY;

MAKE GEMS CHEAPER. You’re charging WAY too much cash for a pile of gems.
I’d pay a whole €5 to complete a structure from building 2days ahead? That’s just sickening.

Supercell, you’ve done a fantastic job creating this game. But i’m about to say goodbye to this game just because the gems are too damn expensive. And playing without will ruin my mood for having to wait 3d+ for a single upgrade.

I will agree to what both of you are pointing out, but I would also like to point something out.
– Shortening the time needed for something to be built.
The time needed for resources,defenses, etc. is way too long
for players to wait for. Especially the town halls, each level, the
amount of time needed just mulitplies by 2.(e.g level 1, 1 day.
level 2 , 2 days. level 3, 4 days. Exactly how long do you want us to
wait. This is why players are spending on gems way too much.
Some players are impatient(no offense) and needs to spend money on gems just to complete what they are building.

If I were apple, I might sue , as the game that is free of charge
while playing, has to be paid and with a large amount of money.
This is completely INSANE!!!!!

I don’t agree with you because you don’t have to buy gems I mean just don’t spend your money the only real thing from thus article I think is good is multiple builders I mean supercell has to make a profit and this other guy who said Apple should sue is just straight up stupid.

I totally agree with you
Iv’e been clashing for about a year now and haven’t spent a dollar yet. Why would I spend money on a game. But supercell don’t do anything about lowering the upgrade times for the buildings, fewer people will keep playing. The only reason I still play is to talk to my friends. Supercell needs to do something to bring the life back to some died bases.

Gems are expensive I agree but it is your choice to buy them.. I have had the game since January 22 of 2014 and after over a year I have spent $5 total on the game.. You can still be a good player just takes longer..

What a load of rubbish!! Supercell is a business and they are making great money at the moment. Good for them. If their playing customers did not like the model then they would not spend the money. I happen to play the game and happen to have bought some gems, but also achieve the majority of my progress in the game by being patient, working hard at collecting resources ingame and in fact there is a much greater sense of achievement if you progress in the game this way.

All games evolve and mature over time and hats off to Supercell if they are making tons of profit now. As the game evolves they will have to become more and more creative to maintain that level of revenue and may even in the future have to make things cheaper in real money terms. But they will have the cash as a company to invest in these initiatives and in other great games.

Something else you forget is that there is no way that the majority of the players spend real money on the game. That’s the benefit of the free to play model. The majority get to play for free and enjoy the game for the elements that they get access to by playing for free. Others pay for the benefit of things happening faster. i.e. you pay you get more, you don’t pay, you get less. Seems only fair and the choice is entirely with you.

Personally I wish I had managed to create such simple yet popular game and if I had, I would continue to develop and grow it to the benefit of the players and the amount of money I can make. If revenues drop, then clearly you need to fix it, but if they are stable or on the rise, clearly you are on the right track and should do more of the same.

Another point, not that I believe it is relevant to how much they charge for gems, is that there are many more costs than just the developers or people. They have to host servers to run the game, clearly the visibility and popularity of the game is due to a lot of money spent on marketing and creating visibility for the game and someone somewhere took the risk of investing in making this, so they deserve to get as much reward as the paying public are prepared to pay.

Wow, I could go on and on because there are so many other reasons why I disagree with this article. Have you thought to consider that many people are busy and cannot play games for hours a day and get enjoyment out of a few minutes of play a day or even every few days. That’s the beauty of this game. You can go at your own pace and get enjoyment out of it without having to feel that you must play for hours every day.

I totally agree with you on the way to play the game: if you had unlimited amount of gems, the game would be pointless because you can finish all the upgrades at once and then… there is nothing left to do, it gets boring.

The only thing I’ll add is that this isn’t a newsworthy piece, it’s an opinionated article of someone who is trying to provide insight on why they feel the cost for gems is unjustified. Clearly this person has never ran a business or the budget for a business because the figures are laughable by anyone with any experience in the matter.

Regardless, the profit margin of the game does not justify the reduction of gem costs. How many stores do you frequent that reduce prices when they make a profit? I’d wager not many.

It’s an ignorant perspective from another gamer who feels like they deserve more than a well polished, well balanced strategy based game that they downloaded for no cost. Which always dumbfounds me.

Lol. Of course, any Company’s main motive is to make profit. There will always be critics, but how can YOU justify suggesting that they can “lower prices” of the gems, and make “even more” profit? Currently, they’re at $100m in profits – that’s pretty much their ceiling I bet, not much more maxing from there. More over, the reason why this game is making so much is because it is UNIQUE to iOS. It doesn’t matter if there’s a million other RPG’s out there with guilds, farming, and online multiplayer – the fact is that it’s unique to iOS and currently they are the monopoly with no competition.

If they reduce the price of gems they will go bust, if we had unlimited gems then it would be pointless, if they charged $50 for 250 gems a week then you get no gems at all, sadly we can’t have multiple builders on one structure because supercell have confirmed that.

I totally agree with Super trooper! In addition, we are talking about a game obviously mostly geared towards children, which makes the in app-purchases even more insane. How can anyone justify in app-purchases (in a free app) as ridiculously expensive as they are in COC? Unethical is a huge understatement. And, you do not have to be against companies and inventors making money to accept that there is an explicit line between smart and disgusting. We all know that line.

The game is a racket . Fun and addictive, they don’t force you to buy gems but they set it up were people that have a impulse problem will spend a lot of money . Why else would the build times take days for instead of minuts and the are real quick to pop up that would you like to spend more gems and add more gems to your account .. But I have only one qua stain for you guys ” why would you spend any more than 75.00 for a video game?”

I typically spend $60 a week on clash of clans, I’m burnt out! Just like I deleted Candy Crush when I realized how addictive yet frustrating having to wait or spend money when I wanted to play so bad Clash of Clans is going the same way. This game is going to fizzle out, people like me are going to move on, so the makers better stash their money because I don’t forsee people sticking around much longer. Waiting hours with nothing to do dying to get back in to play while upgrades and troop building takes place, eventually you realized you got sacked into a great scam. I’m no longer spending money and I’m not playing at the capacity I once was…While I’m waiting weeks for my base to upgrade, other games are definitely catching my interest…oops!

Ok I admit it – I spent 50 on some gems wish I had laid the 99! But I did not so I will work my way up and have fun – do the waiting and farming game – I could easily buy another bag for 99 – but I have upgraded myself to a place where I am being killed in my attacks with a good defense – so it’s better just to play the game and learn as you go and EARN upgrades, etc.

The stronger your base is for defending, it won’t last long! Stronger players will attack your base, so the trophies you gained is not worth it because the higher trophies, the higher level players attack you. Also what supercell should do is not allow same cheif names because it gets confusing, also supercell should not allow same clan names with the same seal, and supercell should like add numbers to the clans and cheif names with the same name so people don’t claim that there are someone when there are not.

Yes, it should be a little bit cheaper for the gems but if it’s too easy to buy, upgrade structures then everyone would have super upgraded bases to the point of maxing out. Supercell can only update the game so quickly.

Yes, it has taken me two years of game play to get to where I am (TH9 with not everything upgraded) but I have enjoyed the game very much. It’s one of my favorites, I have collected gems to upgrade things and only spent $5 Christmas money to get more gems but it takes the accomplishment out of your village.

The new updates are designed for players to spend money. I recommend not playing this game anymore. Companys have been forcing people for a long time now to pay more and more and more for rubbish service and i for one are sick of it. It’s time for people to wake up and walk away from greedy company’s.

i agree and dont agree. coc puts gems in the game not only to make money, but to let people that are small get big fast. if you spend no gems it just means you go up slower but in the end you both turn up in the same place.

Godsangel123 i agree in time we both will max out the game, but th gemmer will be their first which = he’s impatient. I also agree that this person righting this blog is what he thinks not what is true. point out one more thing they dont force you to buy gems